Advantages & Disadvantages of Integrating Social Networking Tools into ESL Writing Classroom

Nowadays, English learning has become important with the development of world and technology. A social networking service (SNS) is an online medium which is used to establish social networks or social relations among individuals. Most people prefer to use this service because it allows them to share opinions, interests, activities and event within their individual networks and this can be done in various ways such as e-mail or instant massaging. Moreover, Internet technology has created online learning environment that enable the virtual learning session between the students. Among various kinds of social networking services, the most widely used worldwide are Facebook and Twitter. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages that can be finding in integrating social networking tools into EFL writing classroom. 

The advantages of using this networking tool in ESL writing classroom is that it provide large amount of information to the students and broaden the students’ knowledge about the learning process. Furthermore, the using of Facebook gives opportunity to the students to publish their interest and activities which they can share it among their friends. Moreover, the comment that their friends post at the Facebook can motivate them and build their confident to share their works too. The Facebook actually can cultivate students brainstorming ability especially when they follow the online discussion which involve larger audience from all around the world because by doing so they are exposed to different culture and views about certain things which they are not familiar with.

Besides that, Facebook also allow multimedia interaction where the students can share the links, videos and pictures to make the learning environment more interesting. Moreover, by using all the features provided and publishing the post, the students can improve their writing skills and their creative thinking skills as well. Apart from that, it also give advantages to teacher as they able to save the students work anytime they want whereas for parents who are busy, they also can view their children development through those networking services without have to see the teachers to ask about their children. We cannot dent that; social networking tool does give convenient to students, teachers and parents.

Other than that, there are also some disadvantages of integrating social networking into ESL writing classroom where in order to use this networking services, it needs computer and internet to be carried out. Moreover, not all school able to provide technological devices for the students to excess the internet. Furthermore, social networking services are very popular in serving entertainment and this can cause distraction to the process of learning. As we all know, the students also tend to ‘copy and paste’ and even lying in doing their tasks because some of them like to find an easier way to finish their task and sometime the information that they get from the networking tools are not guarantee accurate. Apart from that, some students also find it is hard for them to study in virtual form and they prefer study using books. Besides that, when using this networking services the students also like to use short form which will develop informal writing during the exam.

In a nutshell, I agree that integrating social networking into ESL writing classroom provide a comfortable and convenient environment of learning process as it can be carried out anytime and anywhere without need to meet at a specific date and place. But at the same time, I also disagree as the process of learning only can be carried out when there is computer and internet excess. So, here we can see that there are advantages and disadvantages in using this social networking tool and teachers play an important role in planning and choosing right strategies in conducting the learning process so that both teachers and students will gain benefits.